SS131 general psych midterm
The human brain is estimated to consist of approximately how many nerve cells? (Neurons)
100 billion
Neurotransmitters are
A naturally occurring chemical in our nervous system that specializes in transmitting information
Internal causes are the main emphasis of the ________ perspective, whereas external causes are the main emphasis of the ______ perspective.
Biological; behavioral
Psychologists who study how brain chemistry influences behavior are most likely from the _______ perspective, whereas psychologists who study how we think and reason are most likely from the ________ perspective.
Biological; cognitive
In Watson's study, the white was the ____ and the loud noise was the _______
CS;UCS
the brain is part of the ______ system and the spinal chord is apart of the ____ nervous system
Central;central
The____differentiates the human brain from that of all other animals
Cerebral cortex
The trichromatic theory of color vision proposes that we have three types of _____
Cones specialized for perceiving wavelengths of light corresponding to blue, green and red
H.M's performance on the mirror tracing task revealed that he _____.
Could encode new procedural memories
The neuronal structure responsible for RECEIVING information?
Dendrite
The goal of a participant observation is _______, and the goal of a correlational study is _______.
Description; prediction
Low levels of the neurotransmitter ______ are associated with Parkinson's disease.
Dopamine
Which of the following procedures would increase the likelihood that neither the experimenter NOR the participants' expectations would impact the results of a research project
Double-blind procedure
Which theory of motivation suggests that our behavior is motivated by biological needs like hunger and thirst
Drive-reduction theory
The ____ marks the boundary between the outer ear and the middle ear
Eardrum
According to Steven's power law, for which of the following judgements is the PERCEIVED magnitude GREATER than the ACTUAL magnitude
Electric shock
Within neurons, communication is ______. Between neurons, communication is ______.
Electrical;chemical
If a professor is testing your recall ability, she is most likely to use ______ exams.
Essay
In a signal detection experiment, a tendency to say "yes" leads to ______, whereas a tendency to say "no" leads to _______.
Few misses; few false Alarms
The case study of HM revealed that after surgery H.M was unable to _______ suggesting that the _______ plays a role in these types of memories
Form new memories; hippocampus
Cones, located primary in the_____, are responsible for vision in _______
Fovea; bright light
_____ theory can explain how we perceive low- pitched sounds, and _____theory can explain how we perceive high-pitches sounds
Frequency; place
main inhibitory neurotransmitter in the nervous system is
GABA
Damage to ____ produces _____deafness
Hair cells; nerve
Research evidence suggest the ______ is important in the formation of explicit memories and the ____ is important in the formation of implicit memories
Hippocampus;cerebellum
hindsight bias is called
I-knew-it-all-along phenomena
Photographic memory that lasts for less than 1 second is also called______.
Iconic memory
The _______theory(ies) of motivation would best explain a person's motivation for studying in order to earn good grades
Incentive
negative reinforcement ________ a behavior by removing an ______stimulus
Increases; aversive
Autonomic is to somatic as _____ is to______
Involuntary; voluntary
Walking down a dark, deserted street, Brian suddenly hears footsteps behind him. He starts to sweat and begins to run down the street, interpreting his sweating and running as an indication of fear. This particular description of an emotional experience most directly agrees with which of the following theories of emotion?
James-Lange
Tolman's research on maze running rats demonstrate
Latent learning
The ____ is the score positioned in the middle of a distribution when all the scores are listed from lowest to highest
Median.
absolute threshold
Minimum amount of physical energy required for detection 50 of the time
Which of the following has (have) been cited as a neural basis for observational learning
Mirror neurons
Acetylcholine (ACh) is a neurotransmitter that is involved in_____
Muscle movement
When there is a _____relationship, as values of variable X( e.g elevation) increase, values of variable Y( e.g temperature) decrease
Negative
Which of the following is best explained by the facial-feedback hypothesis
Our brains use our facial expressions to determine the emotions we are experiencing
As an individual walks away from us, the visual image we sense decreases in size; however, the visual image we perceive does not. This is due to______.
Perceptual constancies
After solving a series of mathematical problems using a complicated formula, Mark uses the same formula to solve another problem he could have solved using a much simpler formula. Mark's continued reliance on the complicated formula BEST illustrates which of the following?
Perceptual set
Suppose Angela starts an argument with her boyfriend because she is seeking his attention. He angrily responds with a negative comment about Angela's behavior. In this example the negative comment is an example of _____ that, according to operant conditioning principles, will _______ the probability of Angela starting another argument
Reinforcement; increase
The Receptor cells for the visual system are the _____?
Rods and cones
Which of the following is the correct order of visual information processing?
Rods and cones—>bipolar cells—>ganglion cells—>optic nerve
The______ is the group of people who participate in a study, whereas the ______ is all of the people about whom a study is meant to generalize
Sample;population
Information traveling from the senses to the brain is to ______, as the brain's use of knowledge, beliefs, and expectations to interpret data is to ______
Sensation; perception
Which of the following statements about subliminal perception has been supported by research
Sensory input can be registered without conscious awareness
______ is a neurotransmitter involved in levels of arousal and mood that is influenced by drugs such a Zoloft
Serotonin
When behavioral psychologist reinforce successive approximations to the desired response, they are using the process of
Shaping
Which of the following is an example of an unconditioned response
Shivering Pulling your hand away Blinking an eye when a puff is blown into it All of these are examples
The "magical number 7+/- 2" was derived from studies on ______.
Short term memory capacity
The Myelin sheath______ the neural impulse because
Speeds up; the impulse leaps from one gap in the sheath to another
The phrase "use it or lose it" best reflects the ____ theory of forgetting.
Storage decay
Which of the following statements about subjective contours is (are) TRUE?
Subjective contours contain lines that appear to be present but are in fact absent
What is meant by the statement "beauty is not in the eye of the beholder, but rather in the brain of the beholder" ?
The brain's subjective interpretation of an actual stimulus is what we perceive
Godsend and Baddeley (1975) determined the participants recalled more information when their study and test environments were matched. Which of the following beat explains this effect?
The encoding specificity principle
The gestalt principle of closure explains _____, whereas the gelstalt principle of proximity explains_______.
The tendency to complete incomplete figures to form meaningful objects; the tendency to group together the objects that are near each other
What happens when the impulse reaches the axon terminals?
The vesicles in the axon terminals open and neurotransmitters enter the synaptic gap.
To see an object beat in dim levels of light you should look ______
To the side, so the object is focused on the periphery of the retina where more rods are located
To increase the likelihood that students will study continuously throughout the semester, an instructor should give unannounced exams on a_________reinforcement schedule
Variable interval
______ states that for each type of sensory judgment that we make, the measured just noticeable difference (jnd) is a constant proportion of the standard stimulus value used to measure it
Weber's law
If you mix an equal amount of red, green, and blue wavelengths of light, the resulting color appears _____.
White
Which of the following is the best example of a secondary reinforcer
a gold star when you do good work
When a very small dog licks 2-year-old Abby's hand, Abby calls the animal a cat because her framework of knowledge about cats relates to small animals and her framework of knowledge about dogs relates to bigger animals. Her retrieval of the label "cat" was MOST clearly influenced by which of the following?
an existing schema
The long, singular fiber leaving the cell body is the ______.
axon
Psychology is currently defined as the science of ______.
behavior and mental processes
Depth cues requiring information from both eyes is to _____ as depth cues requiring information from one eye is to _____.
binocular cues and monocular cues
It is easier for humans to develop a fear of snakes than to develop a fear of flowers, which BEST illustrates
biological preparedness
A research technique commonly used to study the effects of brain injury on various behaviors is
case study
The ____ contains the nucleus of the neuron
cell body
After an accident, Carl has some difficulty keeping his balance and also seems to have forgotten how to tie his shoes. It is most likely that Carl has suffered damage to which of the following brain structures
cerebellum
______ is (are) often referred to as Pavlovian conditioning.
classical conditioning
The structure that allows two cerebral hemispheres to communicate is the
corpus callosum
Starting with incoming information, which of the following describes the sequence of neuronal transmission?
dendrites, cell body, axon, axon terminal
Tawana answers the phone if there are three short rings, but ignores the call if the rings are long. In terms of classical conditioning, Tawana's different responses best illustrate which of the following?
discrimination
The fact that most Americans cannot easily recall exactly what a U.S penny looks like is best explained by which of the following?
encoding failure
Laura vividly remembers her high school graduation, an example of _____ memory, but has forgotten the meaning of the term "photosynthesis," a failure of _____ memory.
episodic and semantic
Gail is taking psychology because it is a required course for her major, most directly suggesting that her motivation for taking the course is ______.
extrinsic
fMRIs are preferred over PET scans because ______.
fMRIs are less invasive and produce sharper images
The key theme of the Loftus and Palmer study of false memory described in the text is:
false memories can become "real" memories leading us to feel confident that they actually occurred
Your biology professor has decided to divide the semester into three equal sections. During each section, you meet for nine class periods and then have an exam. This most closely resembles a _____ schedule of reinforcement. We would expect the cumulative record for this schedule to have _____.
fixed interval; flat sections followed by dramatic bursts of rapid responding
Carrie is paid a commission for every 10 boxes of candy she sells, illustrating a ______ schedule of reinforcement.
fixed ratio
If students are interested in how many students received As, Bs, Cs, Ds, and Fs on their last exam, they should request that their professor provide them information on the
frequency distribution
The cells comprising the support system in the nervous system are the ______, and the cells responsible for receiving, sending, and integrating information in the nervous system are the ______.
glial cells and neurons
_____ are chemical messengers produced by the endocrine glands and transmitted ____
hormones, bloodstream
Remembering how to type on a keyboard is an example of which of the following types of memories?
implicit memory
Experiments involve the manipulation of ________ and measurement of _______
independent variables; dependent variables
Elaborative rehearsal is more effective than maintenance rehearsal because ______.
it provides more retrieval cues when we need to recall information
The most commonly used measure of central tendency is the ________, and the most commonly used measure of variability is the ________
mean;standard deviation
When Hillary has nothing to write on, she takes a mental walk through her house selecting various places for items she needs to remember to buy at the grocery store. Then when she gets to the grocery store, she takes this mental walk again while shopping. Which mnemonic device is Hillary using?
method of loci
Whenever Francesca is angry with her brother Gerald, she more easily recalls many of the times she has been treated unfairly by others in the past. Which of the following best explains this?
mood-congruent effect
Dr. Matthews is observing children on the playground and recording instances of aggression. This BEST illustrates which research method?
naturalistic observation
Dian Fossey's study of gorillas is an example of ______.
naturalistic observation that turned into participant observation
We are able to interpret varying intensities of stimuli (e.g., a pat versus a slap) because _____.
neurons send messages more frequently when we receive more intense stimuli
The limbic system plays an important role in
our survival, emotion, and memory
As part of an experiment to test the effectiveness of a drug for depression, one group of participants receives a pill that does not contain any active ingredients. The inclusion of these participants most directly indicates that the experiment involves which of the following?
placebo group
When there is a _____relationship, as values of variable X( e.g income) increase, values of variable Y( e.g education level) ALSO INCREASE
positive
maintenance rehearsal is most useful for ____.
retaining information in short-term memory
Although Henry's watchband was bothering him when he first put it on, a short while later he did not even notice he was wearing it. This illustrates ____________.
sensory adaptation
According to the three-stage model of memory, in what sequence does incoming information flow through memory?
sensory memory, short-term memory, long-term memory
Dr. Brandon studies how elementary school children's grades and participation in after school activities differ as a function of whether they attend schools located in urban or rural environments. Dr. Brandon's research interests most likely reflect a ______ perspective.
sociocultural
You recently heard a friend say that the presidential candidate had received several speeding tickets when he was younger. You later recall this information as coming from a newspaper article. In this example, you are MOST likely experiencing _____.
source misattribution
The partial recovery of a previously extinguished CR (conditioned response) is to ______, as the disappearance of a CR (conditioned response) is to ______.
spontaneous recovery; extinction
George Miller is credited with determining:
the amount of information that can be held in short-term memory
We experience the moon illusion because
the brain misapplies information about distance when the moon is surrounded by objects on the horizon
Retrieval is
the process of getting information out of long term memory to the conscious level in the short term memory
After listening to a weather forecast predicting a storm, John perceives the sound made by a slammed car door as thunder, which beat illustrates______.
top-down processing
The process of converting physical energy into neural signals is called _______
transduction
Slot machines provide reinforcement on a _____ schedule of reinforcement whereas pop quizzes operate on a _____ schedule of reinforcement.
variable ratio and variable interval
As Janet is waiting in line at the theater, a man runs by and grabs her purse. Someone is more likely to respond to Janet's cries for help if she is waiting in line with ____, illustrating the ____.
very few other people; bystander effect
Albert banduras investigation of observational learning demonstrated that children
who were not exposed to an adult acting aggressively against the Bobo doll were much less likely to engage in aggressive behavior toward the Bobo doll